Maggots cut short plane trip for two Syracuse area women

It wasn’t “Snakes on a Plane,” but two Central New York women were plenty creeped out when maggots began falling on them as they sat on a USAirways flight to Atlanta on Monday.

Desiree Harrell, of Syracuse, noticed maggots falling out of a closed overhead compartment as the plane was starting to taxi toward takeoff for Charlotte Monday afternoon. She told flight attendants she would not sit in that seat.

Sitting in front of her was Donna Adamo, of Skaneateles. She noticed what she first thought was a bit of lint in her lap, “but it was a little squishy,” she recalled.

Like Harrell, Adamo didn’t want to sit in her seat while maggots wiggled out of the overhead storage bin and fell on her. But, she said, “I didn’t want to be arrested for being insubordinate on a plane.”

Harrell told flight attendants to tell the pilot there was a problem. Soon the plane was heading back to the gate.

Flight attendants told passengers to take their carry-on luggage from the overhead storage. With the bin open, Adamo said she could see maggots peeking over the edge. She got up on a seat to get a better look, she said, but was too short to see past the edge of the bin.

“It was beyond disgusting,” said Adamo, former news anchor on WTVH 5, who used her cell phone to make a video. She stuck around, she said, to be the last passenger off the plane.

Recounting the event two days later, both women remained shaken. Adamo said just talking about it made her want to take a shower. Harrell said maggots can burrow into a body and cause internal problems.

USAirways said the problem was caused by a passenger who brought a container of spoiled meat onto the plane. Harrell has her doubts about that. She said there was no smell of rotten meat. And, she said, there were flies on the plane, meaning the maggots had been there long enough to mature into flies.

Both women lodged complaints with USAirways. Wednesday night, neither had heard back from the airline.